Day Sixty-Two: Archery, A Farm Tour, and Tree-Clearing
The morning started out with a relaxing round of archery practice. The kids were busy playing so I got out my bow and arrows and spent a half hour or so shooting. Archery is a new hobby our family has taken up in the past couple years. We each have our own bows, sized according to our own height and strength. Jeremy bought a kit to make mine - it's a simple design made of bamboo, wood, leather, and fiberglass tape. He got me a leather arm guard for mother's day, so I feel very cool and badass with my bamboo bow and leather arm guard. I need a better quiver though. I have just been tucking my arrows into the side pocket of my overalls. It's a peaceful activity, focusing on your breath, on minute details of form and body position, on finding the arrow you shot over the target into the woods... Daisy is a well-trained archery dog now. She sits just behind me while I'm shooting, then trots along with me to retrieve my arrows (whether from the target or beyond).
Around midday, we said goodbye to the last two puppies of the litter that we're not keeping, leaving us only with Daisy at the house and Dozer with his mother, Skye, on the farm. Bluebell and Winkie (who are now renamed Clara and Susie), were adopted by a farm in Mississippi. I had mentioned the puppies to a coworker of mine who works in our Jackson, MS office, and she knew someone who needed them, so she, her son, and the other farmer drove all the way here to get them.
Since they'd been in the car six hours and needed a stretch, and since they are farmers too we gave them a walking farm tour. It was so nice to chat with people in person! We all stayed at least six feet apart, and didn't hug or shake hands, which, again, was awkward and sad, but necessary. We showed them the goats, cows, pigs, and the old chicken trailer we used to use for our large flock of laying hens back when we were selling at the farmer's market.
The kids, of course, were with us for this tour. They are shy around new people, so didn't talk much. William asked me a few times, in whispers, to tell them various dinosaur facts. "Mama, can you tell them velociraptors are three feet tall and four feet long?" Or, "Mama, can you tell them stegosauruses are bigger than elephants?" Then when they would hear this fact and respond with appropriate interest and excitement, he would grin behind my back.
After a while the kids got tired, so the three of us broke off from the tour and headed back to the house. On the way, we did round-bale yoga, hide and seek, and we found a good climbing tree. Their definition of "tired" is a flexible one, I've discovered. I think in this case, it actually just meant bored with grown-up talk. They were perfectly willing to run all over the place on the walk back.
After the puppies were loaded up and on their way back to Mississippi, we went back home. We had promised Taiya she could watch Return of the Jedi in the afternoon. She has been obsessed with Star Wars since we first watched them all but they are too scary for William, so we've had to limit her viewings to afternoons while he's busy doing something else, rather than during after-dinner show time. She asks things like, "Is that real?" when they are whizzing through the trees on those things that look like flying snowmobiles, and "Did they use movie magic on the Emperor's face?" And she loves Princess Leah. And the baby Ewoks. I watched much of the movie with her, snuggled together having some girl time, while William was occupied with PBS Kids and Jeremy was outside working.
Jeremy has been clearing some trees to create space for a big purchase we have finally made: a pre-built 12' x 20' metal tool shed and storage building. This is major. We have tools of all kinds scattered in all corners of every building, and it is going to be so amazing to have them all in one place! Garden tools, farm tools, construction tools and materials... Jeremy is fantasizing about peg boards already. He owns (at last count) around sixteen different axes, so he's really excited to have a nice place to keep them (as well as all his other tools). But we have to clear some scrubby, overcrowded trees around where we are going to have it placed when they deliver it in a few weeks. Wearing all the proper safety gear this time (including chaps, purchased after a previous chainsaw injury to his thigh that also nearly had me fainting/vomiting a couple years ago), he cut down some cedars, oaks, and hickories. We now have a long pile of slash to be burned off, some nice big logs for construction and firewood, and space for our new tool shed!
Taiya gathered little branches to build a fort out of. I gathered and trimmed some branches to add to my new garden bed I'm growing potatoes in that is framed in with woven sticks. As the potatoes grow taller, I fill in around them with straw and compost, and now I'm having to add height to the box to accommodate the ever-growing plants. I've seen pictures of people doing something similar with two-by-four boxes that they just keeping making taller and taller as the potatoes grow, so I'm experimenting with the technique using materials we have at hand. We'll see if it works!
Around midday, we said goodbye to the last two puppies of the litter that we're not keeping, leaving us only with Daisy at the house and Dozer with his mother, Skye, on the farm. Bluebell and Winkie (who are now renamed Clara and Susie), were adopted by a farm in Mississippi. I had mentioned the puppies to a coworker of mine who works in our Jackson, MS office, and she knew someone who needed them, so she, her son, and the other farmer drove all the way here to get them.
Since they'd been in the car six hours and needed a stretch, and since they are farmers too we gave them a walking farm tour. It was so nice to chat with people in person! We all stayed at least six feet apart, and didn't hug or shake hands, which, again, was awkward and sad, but necessary. We showed them the goats, cows, pigs, and the old chicken trailer we used to use for our large flock of laying hens back when we were selling at the farmer's market.
The kids, of course, were with us for this tour. They are shy around new people, so didn't talk much. William asked me a few times, in whispers, to tell them various dinosaur facts. "Mama, can you tell them velociraptors are three feet tall and four feet long?" Or, "Mama, can you tell them stegosauruses are bigger than elephants?" Then when they would hear this fact and respond with appropriate interest and excitement, he would grin behind my back.
After a while the kids got tired, so the three of us broke off from the tour and headed back to the house. On the way, we did round-bale yoga, hide and seek, and we found a good climbing tree. Their definition of "tired" is a flexible one, I've discovered. I think in this case, it actually just meant bored with grown-up talk. They were perfectly willing to run all over the place on the walk back.
After the puppies were loaded up and on their way back to Mississippi, we went back home. We had promised Taiya she could watch Return of the Jedi in the afternoon. She has been obsessed with Star Wars since we first watched them all but they are too scary for William, so we've had to limit her viewings to afternoons while he's busy doing something else, rather than during after-dinner show time. She asks things like, "Is that real?" when they are whizzing through the trees on those things that look like flying snowmobiles, and "Did they use movie magic on the Emperor's face?" And she loves Princess Leah. And the baby Ewoks. I watched much of the movie with her, snuggled together having some girl time, while William was occupied with PBS Kids and Jeremy was outside working.
Jeremy has been clearing some trees to create space for a big purchase we have finally made: a pre-built 12' x 20' metal tool shed and storage building. This is major. We have tools of all kinds scattered in all corners of every building, and it is going to be so amazing to have them all in one place! Garden tools, farm tools, construction tools and materials... Jeremy is fantasizing about peg boards already. He owns (at last count) around sixteen different axes, so he's really excited to have a nice place to keep them (as well as all his other tools). But we have to clear some scrubby, overcrowded trees around where we are going to have it placed when they deliver it in a few weeks. Wearing all the proper safety gear this time (including chaps, purchased after a previous chainsaw injury to his thigh that also nearly had me fainting/vomiting a couple years ago), he cut down some cedars, oaks, and hickories. We now have a long pile of slash to be burned off, some nice big logs for construction and firewood, and space for our new tool shed!
Taiya gathered little branches to build a fort out of. I gathered and trimmed some branches to add to my new garden bed I'm growing potatoes in that is framed in with woven sticks. As the potatoes grow taller, I fill in around them with straw and compost, and now I'm having to add height to the box to accommodate the ever-growing plants. I've seen pictures of people doing something similar with two-by-four boxes that they just keeping making taller and taller as the potatoes grow, so I'm experimenting with the technique using materials we have at hand. We'll see if it works!
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| These pictures were taken last month so the potatoes are much taller now, but they show the stick bed frame, and the before and after of the straw-filling process. |
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